On Thursday night I dreamed that my friend Joe (not a plumber) had 33 children and was running for the U.S. Senate. He also was, somehow, living in my former one-bedroom Minneapolis apartment with this unfathomable brood and a wife. As I motored off from the Bemidji Holiday Inn shortly before 8 a.m. Friday morning, I contemplated whether this rather bizarre dream had somehow been summoned by my pursuit of Todd Palin.

I really had just one pressing question to ask the “first dude”: Does he think Alaska should secede from the United States of America? (Well, maybe two: Where did he intend to ride his snow machine upon taking up residence in Washington, D.C.?) Palin had, after all, been a member of the Alaskan Independence Party — which has at times advocated becoming an autonomous republic — up until 2002. In fact it wasn’t until after his wife was picked as the party’s VP nominee that he actually registered as a Republican.

But actually asking Palin that question — or any question for that matter — looked like a fairly formidable task. Suffice it to say that the highly orchestrated five-stop caravan through Minnesota was not set up to allow him to pontificate on policy matters and potentially become an embarrassing liability for John McCain’s presidential campaign. Rather Palin’s whistlestop tour was designed to fire up a very targeted niche of the GOP base, namely hunters and snowmobilers.

Arriving at the Arctic Cat factory in Thief River Falls shortly before the Iron Dog champ’s scheduled 9:30 appearance, there were a few hundred people lined up waiting for the show. A handful of local reporters were cordoned off at the front of the room so that they could get unobstructed footage of Palin shaking hands and signing autographs for the GOP faithful.

I attempted to enter this exclusive realm, but was rebuffed by a Secret Service agent who explained that it was up to the McCain campaign who was granted access. I soon was joined by the editor of the Warroad Pioneer, who was also seeking entry to the press area. Eventually Tom Steward, director of communications for McCain’s Minnesota campaign, came over to us. The reporter from Warroad was let through. I was not.

“I don’t think you should be up there,” Steward told me. “Why not?” I queried. “I think you know,” he replied. He then said that it was up to Arctic Cat to decide which reporters were permitted into the inner realm (clearly not true) and said he’d check with the company and get back to me.

But shortly thereafter Palin (accompanied by racing partner Scott Davis) took to the podium and it became clear that Steward had no intention of returning. I got the impression that he didn’t particularly appreciate my efforts to cover the T-Pal Caravan.

In brief remarks to the crowd, Palin emphasized their shared interest in hunting, snowmobiling and other outdoors activities. “If Sarah Palin and John McCain get elected you’ll have advocates in the White House for the stuff that you love to do, that I love to do, that she loves to do,” he said. Palin then made a half-hearted effort at rallying the base for the looming election. “I encourage your support and tell people to get involved,” he told the crowd. “It’s easy to throw stones, but if you go out and vote at least you’ll have a say in something.”

Palin then began signing autographs and shaking hands with the long line of well-wishers. After shooting video footage of the meet-and-greet for a few minutes, I went out to the front of the factory to interview people as they exited the event.

Kathy Marvin had driven down from Warroad, on the Canadian border, to witness the occasion. “I was very excited when John McCain chose her as his running mate,” Marvin said of Sarah Palin. “She is very much like we are here in Minnesota, and even Todd Palin mentioned that today.”

Marvin acknowledged that Palin would have a steep learning curve if she suddenly found herself in the role of president, but believes she would be a quick study. “She’d have to learn a lot, but I think she’s very capable of becoming a president,” she said. “I think she has the strength, she has the intelligence. She does not fit the ‘elitist’ view, which I think is good.”

Allen DuPont also sees his own life reflected in the Palin family. “He’s one of us,” he said of Todd, “a down-to-earth human being.” DuPont’s supporting the GOP ticket “because I don’t want to go socialist.” The Red Lake Falls resident was less forthcoming regarding his thoughts on Obama. “We’re on camera? Not gonna say,” he laughed. “Oh, I think he’s a bright man, but he’s not for me.”

No sleep ’til Moorhead

Then it was off to the final destination, 110 miles to the southwest, on the T-Pal Caravan: Scheel’s Sporting Goods in Moorhead. Concentrating on not getting lost as I took off from Thief River Falls, I forgot to stop and purchase gas. Roughly 30 minutes into the drive, I finally noticed that the gas tank needle was sitting solidly on empty.

This was no way to end the T-Pal Caravan: stranded on the side of Highway 32 with nothing for sustenance but three remaining Cliff bars, one Fiber One chewy bar, six bottles of water and a quarter-full box of J.P. Chenet Syrah-Cabernet wine. Fortunately this scenario did not play out. I eased the speedometer down to 55 mph and within 10 minutes had pulled up to a gas station ($2.59 a gallon!) in Red Lake Falls.

By the time I arrived at Scheel’s Sporting Goods in downtown Moorhead, the place was packed with McCain-Palin supporters. The p.a. was playing a revamped version of the Hank Williams Jr.’s classic “Family Tradition.” Now awkwardly re-dubbed “McCain-Palin Tradition,” the tribute to drinking and drugging is a strange choice to be transformed into a GOP anthem. A local conservative talk radio host, Scott Hennen, further revved up the crowd with some red meat. “Barack Obama wants to take your guns,” he declared to jeers. “This guy’s got the most radical anti-gun record.” This was easily the most boisterous crowd since Duluth.

Palin hit the podium shortly after 2 p.m. Once again stuck in the back of the room, unable to see a thing, I climbed on a shelf and attempted to shoot some video of his stump speech. By leaning precariously to my left I managed to get a few seconds of footage that included Palin’s head. His remarks were once again brief (about six minutes), but he did offer up some rare criticism of the Democratic ticket. “I know that John and Sarah will get government back into the people’s hands,” he said to cheers. “They’re the only reformers that can point to their records.”

As people lined up to shake Palin’s hand and get autographs, I retreated outside to interview folks as they departed. Joined by MnIndy colleague Chris Steller, we videotaped a half-dozen or so interviews that will be posted on the site in the coming days.

But while Chris filmed a pair of verbally dueling McCain and Obama backers, I interviewed Robert Leiseth. He was at the rally with three of his grandchildren and is a strong McCain backer. “The other candidate is steering us into socialism,” he said, a sentiment that I’d heard repeatedly in the last 24 hours.

So he’s not a fan of Obama? “I have no respect for anybody who just plays the game and goes out and gets a free lunch,” he said. “How do you get to Harvard? Or Yale? Or any of those places where he went to school? And had no parents and nobody supporting him? Who supported him through college?”

I thought at first that Leiseth was criticizing affirmative action, but it turned out that he held a more conspiratorial view regarding Obama’s college years. “Somebody paid his way,” he said. “And why don’t he admit who helped him through college? I think that’s cheap. If I were the one that paid his way and he refused to admit that I paid his way, hey, that’s not much of a thank you.”

When asked about the role of race in the presidential campaign, Leiseth stated that he didn’t care about skin color and that his best friend when he served in the military was black. “And he was a real African-American,” Leiseth said. “Obama is an Arab, who’s a little tiny bit of African-American.”

When I questioned this assertion, pointing out that even McCain had declared it false, he was unswayed. “You can go anywhere and you can follow his lineage,” Leiseth said. “His father was an Arab. … You can look it up and decide for yourself.”

When I stepped back inside the sporting goods store to see if there might be one last opportunity to ask Palin a question, he’d already left the building. So apparently it was time to head back to St. Paul. I drove the final 240-mile leg at 80 mph, no longer enamored of Sean Hannity’s incessant yapping about Joe the Plumber and driven loopy by Minnesota Public Radio’s pledge drive. The only consolation was old-time country on the AM dial. Johnny Paycheck singing “Take this Job and Shove it” never sounded so good.

I arrived home roughly 34 hours after departing, 778 miles logged on the rental car. I’d failed in my mission. Some other more intrepid reporter will have to ask the first dude if he thinks Alaska should secede from the union (and where he intends to drive his snow machine in Washington).

Earlier in “Todd and Me”:

Todd (Palin) and me: Day one on the campaign trail with the ‘first dude‘
‘First dude’ and absent Sarah upstage Norm at Duluth Sportsmen for Coleman rally
Todd (Palin) and me: Tracking the ‘first dude’ through the wilds of Minnesota